Penthouse buys Adult FriendFinder
Congratulations, Andrew Conru: Danni Ashe is now your coworker. As the porn-magazine business quietly biodegrades in the ashbin of history, the founder of Adult FriendFinder has sold his company, Various Inc., to Penthouse for $500 million. This despite his earlier denials. The price actually seems low, considering Various's projected revenues this year of $340 million. But the porn business has always suffered from a market discount, as distaste thins the ranks of willing investors. FriendFinder's troubles with the Federal Trade Commission, settled one day before the sale was closed last Friday, can't have helped. What's next for Adult FriendFinder's new owner?
A Penthouse IPO, promised by CEO Marc Bell last year to happen sometime in 2008. We hear he's shooting for April, now that he has a bigger Internet business to flog, one with the requisite buzzwords like "social networking" One thing he'll now have to disclose to investors: Besides Danni.com, Penthouse owns Christian dating site BigChurch.com.